Browse Results

Modify Your Results

Witty economists are about as easy to find as anorexic mezzo-sopranos, natty mujahedeen, and cheerful Philadelphians. But Steven E. Landsburg. . . is one economist who fits the bill. In a wide-ranging, easily digested, unbelievably contrarian survey of everything from why popcorn at movie houses costs so much to why recycling may actually reduce the number of trees on the planet, the University of Rochester professor valiantly turns the discussion of vexing economic questions into an activity that ordinary people might enjoy. -- Joe Queenan,The Wall Street Journal The Armchair Economistis a wonderful little book, written by someone for whom English is a first (and beloved) language, and it contains not a single graph or equation. . . Landsburg presents fascinating concepts in a form easily accessible to noneconomists. -- Erik M. Jensen,The Cleveland Plain Dealer . . . enormous fun from its opening page. . . Landsburg has done something extraordinary: He has expounded basic economic principles with wit and verve. -- Dan Seligman,Fortune

What's wrong with stealing? What's the best way to blood test a pot-bellied pig? Should we tolerate intolerance? In the wake of his enormously popular books, The Armchair Economist and More Sex is Safer Sex, Steven Landsburg uses concepts from maths, economics and physics to address the big questions in philosophy: Where does knowledge come from? What's the difference between right and wrong? Do our beliefs matter? Is it possible to know everything? Provocative, utterly entertaining and always surprising, The Big Questions challenges readers to re-evaluate their most fundamental beliefs and reveals the relationship between the loftiest philosophical quests and our everyday lives.

Steven Landsburg's writings are living proof that economics need not be "the dismal science. " Readers ofThe Armchair Economistand his columns inSlatemagazine know that he can make economics not only fun but fascinating, as he searches for the reasons behind the odd facts we face in our daily lives. InMore Sex Is Safer Sex, he brings his witty and razor-sharp analysis to the many ways that our individually rational decisions can combine into some truly weird collective results -- and he proposes hilarious and serious ways to fix just about everything. When you stand up at the ballpark in order to see better, you make a rational decision. When everyone else does it too, the results, of course, are lousy. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of individual sanity and collective madness. Did you know that some people may actually increase the spread of sexually transmitted diseases when they avoid casual sex? Do you know why tall people earn more money than shorter competitors? (Hint: it isn't just unfair, unconscious prejudice. ) Do you know why it makes no sense for you to give charitable donations to more than one organization? Landsburg's solutions to the many ways that modern life is unfair or inefficient are both jaw-dropping and maddeningly defensible. We should encourage people to cut in line at water fountains on hot days. We should let firefighters keep any property they rescue from burning houses. We should encourage more people to act like Scrooge, because misers are just as generous as philanthropists. Best of all are Landsburg's commonsense solutions to the political problems that plague our democracy. We should charge penalties to jurors if they convict a felon who is later exonerated. We should let everyone vote in two congressional districts: their own, and any other one of their choice. While we're at it, we should redraw the districts according to the alphabetical lists of all voters, rather than by geography. We should pay FDA commissioners with shares of pharmaceutical company stocks, and pay our president with a diversified portfolio of real estate from across the country. Why do parents of sons stay married more often than parents who have only daughters? Why does early motherhood not only correlate with lower income, but actually cause it? Why do we execute murderers but not the authors of vicious computer viruses? The lesson of this fascinating, fun, and endlessly provocative book is twofold: many apparently very odd behaviors have logical explanations, and many apparently logical behaviors make no sense whatsoever.

Copyright:
2007

Showing 1 through 3 of 3 results

Help

Select your format based upon: 1) how you want to read your book, and
2) compatibility with your reading tool. To learn more about using
Bookshare with your device, visit the "Using
Bookshare" page in the Help Center.

Here is an overview of the specialized formats that Bookshare
offers its members with links that go to the Help Center for more
information.

Bookshare Web
Reader - a customized reading tool for Bookshare members offering all
the features of DAISY with a single click of the "Read Now" link.

DAISY
(Digital Accessible Information System) - a digital book file format.
DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with
just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that
contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with
Images’.

MP3 (Mpeg audio
layer 3) - Provides audio only with no text. These books are created
with a text-to-speech engine and spoken by Kendra, a high quality
synthetic voice from Ivona. Any device that supports MP3 playback is
compatible.

DAISY Audio
- Similar to the Daisy 3.0 option above; however, this option uses MP3
files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivona's
Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible
players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.